Integrating your marketing campaigns...

It’s a simple concept really ensuring all communication types and messaging are very carefully linked together so they work in harmony.

So why is it important?

A traditional marketing approach was probably to create individual campaigns for advertising, public relations or sales promotions that were unconnected and may not have carried the same messaging as teams have historically worked in silos. The other element which had an impact on whether campaigns were integrated (and still does) is availability of systems, and having a single customer view.

An integrated approach uses consistent messaging across all communication channels that reinforce each other therefore improving marketing effectiveness as customers start to recognise the campaigns.

Even if you don’t have the systems that you need in place, there are ways to help your teams work more collaboratively to ensure consistent campaigns, these can range from productive meetings, joint planning documents, planning in advance to allow for last minute changes and making sure everyone is up to speed.

In this day and age, we all like to share, and that’s what will make your campaign integrated, sharing across your teams so everyone is singing from the same hymn sheet.

And these teams could range from teams within head office – marketing, PR, social, digital (if these are separate), product, commercial, contact centres, customer service and teams out in the business directly facing the customer. Communication is key.

When starting to plan for an integrated campaign, consider…

channels available to you

channels relevant for your audience

your budget

resource available in terms of team

key dates

internal communications

If you find this all rather baffling, but know that you need an integrated campaign for 2018, get in touch as we’d love to help you plan for success for the new year.